<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>a long way from the playground by skybeom</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312415">a long way from the playground</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybeom/pseuds/skybeom'>skybeom</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Childhood Friends, Losing a best friend, M/M, Unrequited Love, beomgyu cameo, lapslock, side yeonbin, taehyun im sorry for this, taejun</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:41:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>651</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybeom/pseuds/skybeom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>taehyun realises that not everything feels like something else.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun, Choi Yeonjun/Kang Taehyun, Taejun - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a long way from the playground</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>me saying i'd write something more lighthearted ha... anyways pls enjoy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>taehyun’s memories of yeonjun were like polaroid pictures. you stick them up on your wall and remember the happiest moments and wish you could go right back. you carry one round in your wallet, no one sees it but you feel safe knowing it’s there. you look at them and you remember where you belong, where you fit best. but at the end of they day that’s all they are - pictures. they’re in the past. but taehyun doesn’t need pictures when everywhere he goes is a memory. everywhere is almost a ghost of yeonjun. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>he walks past the playground round the corner from their street and remembers hands. nine year old yeonjun’s hands were a little bigger than taehyun’s at six years old and had lifted him out of the sandpit when he fell. yeonjun was older and taller and </span>
  <em>
    <span>cooler </span>
  </em>
  <span>and taehyun was enamoured from the get go. he remembers shoes scuffing the tarmac when they sat on the swings until dusk talking about nothing and everything all at once. he remembers more hands: taehyun was still scared of the dark at sixteen but it didn’t matter when yeonjun held his hand on the walk home and it didn’t mean anything because they were just best friends. he remembers how his heart threatened to beat through his chest and he was desperate for it to stop because this was his best friend and it felt </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>taehyun would sit at his desk in class and remember the way yeonjun would press his face to the door just to make taehyun laugh and run away just before the teacher noticed. to be honest, it was never that funny but taehyun still smiled every time and ignored the spread of warmth in his chest because “</span>
  <em>
    <span>taehyun, he does that everyday just to see you smile” </span>
  </em>
  <span>beomgyu had whispered with a frown. “he’s just looking out for me.” was always taehyun’s reply. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>taehyun had learned to stop hoping for something more at seventeen when yeonjun met soobin and for the first time taehyun knew what it really felt like to be second best. it was a slow drift but soon he realised he wasn’t the one who yeonjun came to first with good news, then he became flaky with their late night calls until they stopped completely and then taehyun found himself alone more often than not. then it hit him all at once and he felt like his chest was caving in; loneliness and jealousy took over the hollow space and made itself a home. he felt like a stupid kid with an embarrassing crush on someone that would only ever see him as a childhood friend. yeonjun was taehyun’s whole world but taehyun was just a part of yeonjun’s.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and now at 18 years old taehyun had just posted a cheap ‘good luck!’ card through yeonjun’s door who was off to college because he refused to say a proper goodbye and cry in front of yeonjun and he knew it was over now. while yeonjun would be driving to a new city with his parents in just a matter of hours (twelve years had never been enough) taehyun would have his back to the window and accept that he loved yeonjun in a way yeonjun couldn’t love him back. but taehyun kept questioning ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>how?’</span>
  </em>
  <span> how do you mourn the unspoken end of a friendship? how did they drift so quickly after a whole childhood’s worth of memories? yeonjun easily drifted into soobin’s life like he did into six year old taehyun’s but what is taehyun supposed to do when </span>
  <em>
    <span>he </span>
  </em>
  <span>has no one else’s life to drift into? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>with unanswered questions pressing on his mind, taehyun listened to the slam of car doors that belonged to yeonjun, the sound of the engine until it was too far away to hear anymore- and held on to his polaroid memories of choi yeonjun.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>sorry this is a little messy and short but hope u enjoyed! title from 18 by 1D and the quote in the summary is from a uquiz and i can't find the original source :( also pls ignore the technicalities like age yeonjun may be 21 here but yes he is off to college</p><p>let me know what you think in the comments :D</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>